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Cities and the Idea of Civilization

1. What features make up a “Civilization”?

2. What kinds of boundaries were easy to determine? What kind were hard?

3. What does the phrase “cradles of civilization” mean?

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1. Writing, Mathematics, and Poetry
1. What was Cuneiform?
2. What are epic poems?
3. What are some examples of epic poems?

2. 4. Why did Sumerians need to study math?

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Life Under Hammurabi

1. How did Hammurabi’s code protect people?

- Hammurabi's code protected people because it punished people for what they did wrong.  People would be motivated to do the right thing. The punishments were an eye for an eye, so people didn't want to hurt people if the same thing would happen to themselves

2. What were some dominant topics in Hammurabi’s code?

- Hammurabi's law mainly focused on agriculture and other trades. If you neglected or avoided tending to your land, that was a violation of the code. The code also included the quality guarantee of trade products from creator to consumer. It follwed the rule "an eye for an eye" and the punishment must fit the crime.

3. What other topics did his code cover?

- The law also talks about regulating trades, buyouts of punishments for higher-standing people, family, and marriage codes.

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Empires in Mesopotamia
1. Who was Sargon and what regions did he conquer?
2. What were the benefits Sargon brought to the people under his rule?
3. Describe Sargon strategy when conquering Sumerian and other Mesopotamian cities
4. How long did Sargon's empire last and what was the cause of its collapse?

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1. Sumerian Politics and Society
1. Who held the most land?
2. What was slavery in Sumer like?

2. 3. What ranks of women enjoyed privileges and why?

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1. Environmental Challenges, Irrigation, and Religion

1. What sorts of environmental challenges did early Mesopotamian societies face?

2. Why were droughts dreaded?

3. Irrigation systems depended on what features?

4. Who operated the irrigation systems and why were they in charge?

5. What are ziggurats?

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What environmental challenges did they face? (1)

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What environmental challenges did they face? (1)

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There was a very arid climate, so getting water to plants would be hard. To fix this, the Mesopotamian people developed large-scale irrigation. There were also major floods, and the people developed dikes to stop them.

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2. Droughts were dreaded because of the aridness of the land. On top of that, Sumer and Mesopotamia relied heavily on irrigation. Without water, farming and irrigation would become increasingly difficult for the land.

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3. What ranks of women enjoyed privileges and why?

Women who were priestesses or queens had their own land and could have been elite landowners. Some of them owned businesses and took care of themselves without a husband to do it for them. When property was inherited by a daughter, it was in the form of a dowery that would be managed by her husband or his family after marriage.

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irrigation systems depended on cooperation and some level of political and social cohesion.

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Who operated the irrigation systems? (4)

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Who operated the irrigation systems? (4)

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Everyone worked together on the irrigation systems because it was such a big effort, but the systems were led by Sumerian priests. This is because religion was such a big part of Sumerian life.

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1. Sargon was the king of a region to the north of Sumer, conquered a number of Sumerian cities. He called the new capital Akkad.

2. Akkadians adapted cuneiform writing to their own language, and Akkadian became the diplomatic language used over a wide area. He encouraged trading networks that brought in goods from as far as way as the Indus River in South Asia.

3. He tore down the defensive walls of Sumerian cities. He appointed his own sons as their rulers to help him cement his power. He also appointed his daughter, Enheduana as high priestess in the city of Ur.

4. His dynasty lasted for about 150 years. He collapsed because of extended drought, and various cities and states rose to power.

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5. Ziggurats are huge stepped pyramids, often in major temple complexes.

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1. Kings and Nobles
2. It was filled with the poor from many races and were used to amass wealth and power.

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1. Sumerian form of writing; the term describes the wedge-shaped marks made by a stylus. The system began with pictographs, and eventually evolved into a language of more abstract ideograms.
2. An oral or written narration of the achievements and sometimes the failures of heroes or kings that embodies peoples' ideas about themselves.
3. A very famous example is the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first epic poem ever written.
4. The Sumerians used a base sixty number system. This allowed us to derive and develop the system of time we still use today. They also developed the system of place values, a system where the value of a number depends on where the number stands in stands relation to other numbers. They even were able to recover  multiplication and division problems on tablets created by the Sumerians.

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1.  Civilizations are political, economic, and social organizations. They had laws, codes of manner, and social conducts that governed human relationships and behavior. Moreover, civilizations were considered to be societies that used writing.

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2. In the past, civilizations have demonstrated the complexity of humanity societies and their ability to grow. Their boundaries extended to exclude rural areas and uncivilized people. Civilizations also tended to only include societies that used writing and social conducts.

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3. Cradles of Civilization were the earliest places that developed writing and cities. These societies presented a model for the development of humanity. Proceeding civilizations based their morals and structure around the cradles of civilization. They introduced ideas that were spread onto to future generations.

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The Rise Of States, Laws and Social Hierarchies

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The Rise Of States, Laws and Social Hierarchies

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1. A family group, religious leaders, and even a charismatic or talented person

1. They became monarchs, theocrats or dictators

2. Developed armies and police forces to coerce people through violence

3. Writing was used to record information and accounting

1. Keep track of people and goods

4. They were typically in favor of males due to most leaders being male, they created more social hierarchies,